Chapter 52: 3 Seconds, Blowing Up the Palace and the Wise Men (Patreon)

While Daniel was comforting Betty and the others, Reinhard's corpse suddenly burst into flame.

"Master, watch out!"

"Daniel!"

Elsa and Emilia snapped to alert at the sudden change, and under everyone's wary gazes, Reinhard rose back to life.

Before he could say a word, he noticed that Daniel had likewise come back to life.

Without wasting a syllable, the Sword Saint drew the Dragon Sword once more.

At the same time, Reinhard petitioned the world and was granted the Divine Protection of Truth.

It let him instantly grasp that Daniel possessed a Phoenix-like Divine Protection of his own — that was how he'd survived — and, like Reinhard's own power, it wasn't limited to a single use.

Seeing this, Daniel released the sobbing Betty and rose to his feet, addressing the women. "All right, leave the rest to me."

"This is a personal matter between him and me now, after all."

"Betty can help too!"

Betty tugged anxiously at his sleeve with her small hand.

Daniel just grinned and waved her off. "Ha! Don't worry, Betty. It's just a bit of exercise — no need to fret over me."

With that, he wove the wind into a pseudo-ideal fluid barrier and wrapped it around the women, so none of them would get caught in the coming fallout.

Seeing that Daniel wouldn't let them intervene, Emilia and the others obediently stayed put, though worry lingered plainly in their eyes.

After all, his opponent was the Sword Saint!

Reinhard didn't attack right away. He simply watched Daniel finish shielding Emilia and the others before speaking, his tone heavy.

"I didn't expect Lord Daniel to possess a power of resurrection as well. This time, I'll try to restrain you and leave the judgment to the sages."

Daniel rolled his neck and ran a hand over his now-unblemished waist, an unfamiliar edge of anger creeping into his voice. "Heh. If you think you can, then try it."

"By the way — getting cut in half at the waist really hurts. Don't worry, I'll be returning the favor shortly, Sword Saint."

The moment he finished speaking, the vectors beneath his feet spiked his kinetic energy, and he streaked toward Reinhard trailing a sonic boom cloud.

At the same instant, two earthen spikes erupted from the ground beneath Reinhard's feet, one after the other, driving toward the base of Daniel's thighs with terrifying speed and force.

Fast as Daniel's attack was, Reinhard — stacked with an absurd array of Divine Protections — wasn't worried about being hit.

The Divine Protection of First Strike and the Divine Protection of Advent alone were enough to make Daniel's attack whiff entirely.

So even though Daniel struck without warning, he still couldn't land a hit — Reinhard's Protections carried him clear of the attack.

But Reinhard suddenly sensed something was wrong: the effects of his first two Protections had already been spent dodging the earthen spikes — which meant what came next was Daniel's real attack.

A feverish grin spread across Daniel's face. "Heh. Took the bait, didn't you, Sword Saint? That was my real line of attack!!"

Boom!

Daniel's palm slammed over Reinhard's head, and the sheer force of the impact snapped his spine instantly.

He dragged Reinhard headfirst through the manor's outer wall, momentum unchecked, accelerating wildly — Mach 1, Mach 5, Mach 7.

A white streak tore out from the Astrea estate at terrifying speed, punching straight through countless houses on a beeline for the royal palace.

Along the way, nobles, dragon carriages, and guards alike were all smashed to pieces by Daniel and the Reinhard-shaped battering ram in his grip.

Rubble, splintered wood, and human remains sprayed through the air in every direction.

Thanks to his Reflection, none of the blood stained Daniel, and Reinhard's own Divine Protection of Cleanliness kept him equally spotless.

Still, the impacts he felt through his own body told him plainly: he had just crushed a great many people.

Daniel was moving too fast; by the time anyone could react, it was already too late — the two of them had smashed straight through into the royal palace.

At the same time, Reinhard petitioned the world once more, gaining the Divine Protections of Healing, Reaction, and Aerial Mobility.

Reinhard's legs instantly compressed the air into a solid foothold; the recoil blew both his legs apart into a haze of blood, but it also broke Daniel's momentum for an instant.

Under the compounding force, the Sword Saint's head was on the verge of bursting outright, but Daniel caught himself and redirected the kinetic energy down into Reinhard's waist instead.

He had, after all, promised to return the favor of being cut in half — couldn't very well go back on his word now.

Crack!

Daniel let go, and Reinhard's body split cleanly at the waist. The upper half went flying off, smashing through one of the palace's outlying pavilions and vanishing from sight.

Daniel channeled the remaining kinetic energy in his own body down through his feet, spreading it outward.

The terrifying force erupted into a devastating quake that shook the entire royal capital to its foundations.

But Daniel kept it contained, focusing the worst of the destruction squarely on the royal palace.

The ground split open again and again, buildings collapsed by the dozen, and palace knights who never even had the chance to react were buried beneath the rubble without ever knowing what had hit them.

The area Daniel had singled out for special attention — where the sages resided — fared worst of all. Those self-important old sages were swallowed whole by the splitting earth, either falling to their deaths or crushed flat as the ground closed in.

"What's happening — the ground's splitting open! Someone pull me up!"

"Where are the knights? Someone save me! I'm Sage Bordeaux — where's Reinhard?!"

Amid a chorus of wailing screams, they soon fell silent.

Only a handful of genuinely capable knights survived within the palace grounds.

"That wave should've wiped out just about the entire Council of Wise Men."

Daniel stamped the ground, cycling the quake's vectors back in front of him again and again until they formed a visible cyan-hued tornado, stirring his hair.

To Daniel, shielded by his Reflection, the wind was nothing more than a light breeze. To everyone else, it looked like a tornado towering over a thousand meters high.

"Wh-what is that!?"

"Is this divine punishment?"

"O Dragon... have you forsaken us?"

The surviving knights stared blankly at the terrifying tornado. They tried to struggle, but the storm dragged them in against their will, shredding them into mist of blood.

Julius, the finest knight on palace duty that day, had lost all his usual elegance — blood trickled down his cheek.

The earlier quake had sent him crashing into rubble; only his own skill had kept him from falling into one of the ground's fissures. Even so, his pupils contracted sharply at the sight before him.

"What in the world is happening? And the Sword Saint — has he still not shown up?"

Watching countless comrades get swept up by the storm, Julius couldn't simply stand by. As a six-attribute spirit-arts user, he moved to try to stop it.

"Rainbow Sword: Al Clarista!"

The power of his six elemental spirits gathered into his blade, blazing with rainbow light, which he condensed into a beam and unleashed straight at the tornado.

But at that moment, someone appeared floating in front of the tornado, blocking the beam's path outright.

"What!?"